This Monday Cheat Sheet includes 5 tips and tricks to improve everything from your morning coffee to your social media game to your shoe wardrobe. Take a look:

Coffee

Get yourself an old school Faberware Percolator. (I bet your mom - or your grandmother - still has one.) It consistently gives you a steaming hot cup of coffee and is much cheaper in the long or short run than those other fancy coffee makers because there's no need to buy filters or individual pods of coffee. Also, no clogging up the landfills with those pesky little plastic pods.

*Click here to read more about why you need to jump on the retro coffee pot bandwagon. (I predict this is going to be a huge trend...Remember you heard it here first!)

Social Media

Instagram Tip: Gotta love those people who follow you on Instagram just to get you to follow them. Once you follow them back, they go and UNFOLLOW you. How rude!

Best FREE app to see who's playing social media mind games like this is Followers For Instagram. (See photo above.) This app will tell you who has unfollowed you, who your newest followers are and whether or not anyone has blocked you on IG. 

Facebook Tip: Ever rush to comment on someone's FB status, then immediately want to start ripping out your hair because of the barrage of notifications that pop up - after a few dozen other people all had the same idea as you?

There is a way to stop the madness (without having to go back and delete your comment): Go to the top right hand corner of the update and click the down arrow you see there. A drop down of options will appear. Choose TURN OFF NOTIFICATIONS (near the bottom) and just like that, you are FB stress free again. 

Beauty

True story - My natural eye lashes aren't great. (In case I ever doubted this, my nieces have confirmed it for me repeatedly.) I'm also not coordinated enough to apply false eyelashes. (I've cheated and paid makeup artists to do it for me in the past.) And most days, I'm too lazy to bother applying mascara, which might melt right off before the end of the day anyway, depending on how oily my skin is or how hot and humid it is outside. My solution? Eyelash Extensions. (See photo above.)

Now, I know it was definitely worth the time (The whole process takes 1 - 1.5 hours.) and money (I paid $125 plus tip.) because I ran into a friend over the weekend and she couldn't stop telling me how the lashes made me look way more glam than usual. Keep in mind I had no makeup on whatsoever, just the lash extensions. #LifeChanging

*Click here for more info about where to get your own extensions.

Style Or How To Save Your Sole

Find yourself a good cobbler you can trust. Not just for repairs, but to safeguard your new shoes and the money you paid for them. After buying any shoes with a leather sole, take them to the cobbler ASAP - before wearing - and have rubber soles put on. This will make them last a lot longer.

Caveat: Having rubber soles applied to old, worn shoes can be tricky. I've done it and a few times, the shoes came back a 1/2 to a full size too big. 

*Resist the urge, however, to have a red sole put on a shoe that is NOT a Louboutin. a trend which started in NYC back in 2011. I've had local cobblers in RI offer that more than once over the last year. #NoThanks #DoILookLikeIWearKnockoffs

(More proof btw that it takes at least 2-3 years before certain trends hit the Ocean State.)

Ciao for Now,

PattyJ

Photo Credits: All photos courtesy of PattyJ.com, except the one of my eyelash extensions which was provided by Nicole Lombardi of The Loft Salon at 481 Pontiac Ave, Cranston, RI, 02910.